China congress: Leadership runners and riders

China is just days away from unveiling its new leadership. Here, we examine
the men and women who may take power.

Who will the next leaders of China be?Photo: EPA

3:13AM GMT 12 Nov 2012

Xi Jinping

Age: 59

Xi Jinping is the only top Chinese leader to have grown up in the luxury of Zhonganhai, the walled private compound where the Communist elite lives, and in the scratching poverty of the countryside.

Until he was nine years old, Mr Xi travelled in the limousine of his father, Xi Zhongxun, a vice premier who had been the founder of one of the Communist guerrilla armies in north China. But in 1962 the elder Xi was purged for supporting the publication of a book that was felt to be critical of Chairman Mao.

He was held under house arrest until 1978, while his son was sent, at the age of 16, to work on a farm in Shaanxi, then one of China's poorest provinces. The farmers liked him: he won wrestling matches against them and was able to carry shoulder poles of heavy 110lb buckets across the mountains.

He left seven years later, as the Cultural Revolution ended. Later, he said: "It was emotional. It was a mood. And when the ideals of the Cultural Revolution could not be realised, it proved an illusion."

He then studied chemical engineering at Tsinghua university and joined the army upon graduation. His path to the top has taken him through almost every level of administration in the provinces of Hebei, Fujian, Zhejiang and saw him briefly run Shanghai. In Hebei, he was nicknamed "God of Wealth" after building a theme park based on Journey to the West, the Chinese classic. He also developed a reputation for cutting through red tape.

Described by many as a good man, and as a chip off the old block, Mr Xi has been opaque about his beliefs or policies, whether economic or political.

However, he has closer ties to the West than his predecessor, Hu Jintao. His first wife is thought to live in England, the daughter of a former Chinese ambassador to London. He has a sister in Canada, and his daughter with Pei Liyuan, a Chinese folk singer, is studying at Harvard university.

Li Keqiang

Age: 57

Li Keqiang boasts a PhD in economics and is one of the few top Chinese politicians to speak fluent English.

But the 57-year-old politburo member has humble roots, having been born in Anhui province's Dingyuan county, the son of a low-ranking government official.

Aged 19, Mr Li was dispatched to Anhui's Fengyang county where he spent four years working with the farmers as part of Chairman Mao's campaign to reeducate "intellectuals".

"The conditions in Fengyang were grim - not surprising given that the place is best known for a song sung by beggars blaming drought for their poverty and starvation," noted a 2007 profile in the South China Morning Post.

In 1977, following Mao¡¯s decade-long Cultural Revolution, Mr Li was one of the first students admitted to Peking University¡¯s law school.

One contemporary described Mr Li as "sharp-tongued and quick-witted", but also as a man "who will not challenge authority on major issues".

A school friend remembered Mr Li as a bookworm who had read Sun Tzu's The Art of War in primary school and was "a man of strategy". During the late 1970s he is reported to have translated a book by Lord Alfred Denning, the British judge who wrote the 1963 report on the Profumo Affair.

After completing his degree Mr Li spurned the opportunity to continue his studies in the United States, staying in Beijing to join the Communist Party Youth League.

There, he came into contact with Hu Jintao, China's outgoing president, who became his political mentor.

In 1998, aged 43, Mr Li was dispatched to Henan province becoming China's youngest ever governor the following year. He became party secretary in 2002 and two years later was sent to Liaoning where he built a reputation as a corruption-fighter with a commitment to the poor.

As with all China's top politicians few concrete details are known about Mr Li's private life. But a 2007 Wikileaks cable offered some clues.

The dispatch from the US ambassador in Beijing described an "engaging and well-informed" man and mentioned Mr Li's attempts to fight corruption by introducing compulsory prison tours for government officials "in order to witness first hand the consequences of malfeasance". The diplomat reported that Mr Li was "coy about his hobbies and interests" but had admitted to enjoying walking and Oklahoma.

Li Yuanchao

Age: 61

The third member of the troika comprising Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, Li Yuanchao is also the son of a Communist party official, the deputy mayor of Shanghai.

Li Mr Xi, Mr Li was also sent to work on a farm in Jiangsu province for four years after graduating from high school. He then studied mathematics before going to Fudan university in Shanghai.

He served in the Communist Youth League with Li Keqiang, Liu Yandong and Hu Jintao in the 1980s, and rose up through the party in Jiangsu, eventually becoming the province's party secretary in 2003.

In 2007, he became the director of the Communist party's Organisation department, the internal HR wing of the party which decides on all promotions and advancements.

Zhang Dejiang

Age: 65

Seen as a safe pair of hands, Zhang Dejiang was parachuted in to replace Bo Xilai as the Chongqing party secretary in March, as the Neil Heywood murder scandal rocked Chinese politics.

Born in the northeastern province of Liaoning, Mr Zhang has been a member of the expanded politburo for a decade and spent two years studying in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

Zhang was party chief in Guangdong when the 2002 SARS crisis broke out and faced heavy criticism for his role in hampering press coverage.

But he has close ties to former president Jiang Zemin and in 2008 he became a member of China's cabinet, the State council.

Yu Zhengsheng

Age: 67

Yu Zhengsheng is the "princeling" party secretary of Shanghai, a trained engineer who spent his university years learning how to manufacture missiles.

Born in Zhejiang province, Mr Yu was raised by his journalist mother from the age of 12 after his father, the first mayor of Tianjin, died.

Mr Yu studied ballistic missile engineering at the Harbin Institute of Military Engineering and claims to have spent 24 years working as an engineer before going into politics.

According to his official biography, Mr Yu became a member of the Communist Party in 1964 and went on to become mayor of Qingdao and Yantai.

As the party boss of Shanghai since 2007 Mr Yu has earned a reputation as a man who avoids rocking the boat by pushing radical ideas. "There is a poem saying: he came quietly and he left quietly," he said in a 2009 television interview.

Wang Qishan

Age: 64

Wang Qishan is a former financier who helped untangle a multi-billion dollar banking crisis in Guangdong province, who cleared up the SARS crisis in Beijing, and who planned the 2008 Olympic games.

Seen as a problem solver, Mr Wang is one of China's most respected politicians, and was described by Henry Paulson, the US Treasury secretary, as "bold, decisive and inquisitive, with a wicked sense of humour".

Born in Qingdao, he began as a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, before joining the China Rural Trust & Investment Corp. and then China Construction Bank. In 2000, he was made director of the Office for Economic Restructuring in Beijing, and in 2003 he was the party secretary of Hainan island. He subsequently became Beijing's mayor and is credited for much of the success of the 2008 Olympics.

Liu Yunshan

Age: 65

Liu Yunshan is a former reporter for Xinhua, the state news agency, who now oversees the Communist party's powerful Propaganda department.

Liu is thought to be the man responsible for creating the Great Firewall, the censorship tool that keeps the Chinese internet separated from the rest of the world. According to the New York Times, he also ran the campaign that eventually saw Google pull out of China in 2010. He worked for more than 20 years in Inner Mongolia before arriving in Beijing to join the Propaganda department.

However, he has been linked, together with Zhou Yongkang, China's most senior security official, to Bo Xilai, the now disgraced former party secretary of Chongqing.

Zhang Gaoli

Age: 65

The party secretary of the booming northern city of Tianjin, Zhang Gaoli is a statistician by training who rose up through the Communist party while working at a giant oil refinery.

After becoming the party secretary of the Maoming Petroleum Industrial Company, Zhang served as the deputy governor of Guangdong province and then as the party secretary of Shenzhen, China's richest and arguably most advanced city.

He then became the governor of Shandong province, before arriving in Tianjin.

Wang Yang

Age: 57

Known to some as "the Young Marshal", Wang Yang is currently the party secretary of Guangdong.

Originally from Anhui province, he has developed a reputation as one of China's more liberal politicians since taking over in Guangdong in 2007.

A former member of the Communist Party's Youth League, Mr Wang has painted himself as a fan of social media which he describes as an ideal way for people to make their voices heard. He recently ordered civil servants to take an IT course to "enrich their knowledge and improve work performance".

Mr Wang has also been known to question Beijing's policies and state intervention in citizen's lives. "We must get rid of the misconception that the people's happiness is a gift from the party and government... [and] respect the peoples' initiative so that the people boldly explore their own path to happiness," he told a congress last year.

Liu Yandong

Age: 66

Liu could become the first woman ever to join the Politburo Standing Committee. Born in the eastern ship-building city of Nantong as the daughter of a prominent official, Ms Liu has ties to almost all of China's other top leaders, either through her family or her career.

Her father, Liu Ruilong, sponsored Jiang Zemin's foster father into the Communist Youth League, and Ms Liu grew up in the nursery run by the mother of Zeng Qinghong, another of China's former top leaders.

She then worked with Hu Jintao, Li Keqiang and Li Yuanchao in the Communist Youth League, while she studied the same subject, chemical engineering, at Tsinghua university, Xi Jinping's alma mater. She is currently the director of the powerful United Front Work Department, which overseas China's relationship with Tibet and Taiwan, and her portfolio includes education and culture.

Meng Jianzhu

Age: 65

Meng Jianzhu, China's Public Security Minister, is seen as an outside bet for a place on the Standing Committee.

Born in Jiangsu province, Mr Meng graduated from the Shanghai Mechanical Engineering Institute and worked his way up through the party ranks becoming Shanghai's vice-mayor in 1993.

In 2001 he became party secretary in Jiangxi before taking over from Zhou Yongkang, at the Public Security Ministry in 2007.